- Book of the General Laws, collected out of the Records of the GeneraL Court, pp. 21, 22. Brinley'a Beprint of 1865, of tlie ed. of lliT.'i. 3 Jlr. W. S. Pelletrcau.

HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

not truthfully be denied, why the English Governors of the Province of New York, in obedience to the "Instructions " of the English King, could take no steps to establish the Church of England, except in those 2)arts of that Province, where it could possibly be done.

The Church of England in New York originated not in this " Ministry Act"' as has been so generally believed and stated, but in the earlier action of the English Sovereigns, in virtue of vlie law of England. That act was merely the second step taken in obedience to the Royal Instructions. It was also an j illustration of a principle, which obtained throughout British America Irom the earliest settlement of Virginia down to the close of the American Revolution. That principle was this, "that some form of religion, dissent from which in- j volved serious civil disabilities was established in nearly all the Colonies by virtue, of either the local or the imperial law." These are the words of Ex-Provost Stille of the University of Pennsylvania, in his "Religious Tests in Provincial Pennsylvania." ' Mr. 8tille has treated this subject so ably, and so well, and his conclusions being so nearly identical with those to which its investigation had already led the writer, that his statement (which has only appeared since this portion of this essay was begun) is here given in preference to the writer's own, which was not , quite so full, and because it corroborates his views.